Ookurayama at night (moon sold separately)
Ahem. Ignore the title (it's an obscure reference, though currently true) and welcome to this blog, which will detail my experiences of Japan for those interested. I am writing this from a small cubicle in a most sublime Japanese invention, the Internet/Manga Kissa, a shop where one may use the Internet or choose from a vast collection of manga for a flat time-based fee (about 3 pounds for one hour, then an increment of 50p per ten minutes, or a three-hour pack for 6 pounds and so on up to the Night Pack of eight hours for 6 pounds for those that missed their last train and need a distraction and a really comfy reclining chair to snooze in). In spite of an idiosyncratic Japanese keyboard (the lack of pound signs is the least of its issues), it's a really comfy place. Its only other flaw is ill-positioned USB slots, which won't accept my card reader, meaning I can't get any photos up until I copy them onto a memory stick at home. I'll come back and edit photos into this when I can.
Anyway...the flight here was nowhere near as scary as anticipated. Yes, inability to sleep properly during a night flight was a liability, but I was saved by a DS borrowed from my girlfriend. Notable features included ultra-polite stewardesses, announcements which were suspiciously longer and more detailed in Japanese than in English, and a remarkably sophisticated in-flight entertainment system with individual screens and a truly vast choice of movies and audio programmes (at least 20 of the former, probably more). I stuck to the DS, though, having promised its owner to finish her game by the time I returned, and also not wanting to try to watch anything due to intermittent sleepiness.
On arrival, I was met by the charming Sachie, an Eng. Lit student who welcomes travellers for Succeo Ltd. as one of three (!) part-time jobs over the summer. We talked a lot on the long train journey out of Narita Airport. She is an avid traveller who aims to master both English and Korean for a later international career as well as personal interest.
At the other end, I was met by the 20-year old Yuya (he spells it like that in romaji, but feel free to insert a "u macron" over the first vowel for higher accuracy). He's the son of the family, an International Studies student, and a fan of driving, variety shows and computers. The rest of the family are Michiko, his mother, a housewife with great cooking skills (sadly largely meat-based; she forgot I had dietary limitations within hours, and I didn't have the heart to refuse, so bye-bye vegetarianism for now) and a pathological inability to get my name right which means that I am now shortened to Sei (an actual Japanese name) for the sake of convenience. My first nickname which I don't hate. Yay. Finally, the father, Yukio, a self-employed landlord whose motto is "relax", and who really lives by it. He radiates an aura of relaxation and informality, as well as permanently underestimating my Japanese. The family's English skills also go in that order - Yuya reads freely and can speak relatively well, Michiko is learning English and can supply various short translations, and Yukio knows the most random English words and expressions. On the whole, I can get by with Japanese, occasionally asking for the meanings of various words.
I'm learning a lot about me and the Japanese language. For starters, kunyomi are a lot easier to remember than onyomi. The weekly test system which rewarded short-term kanji recall has also let me forget an awful lot of them, or at least put them far from easily accessible memory. I can understand a lot more than I can say - many of the complicated grammatical forms I knew so well just don't surface in time for speech. I think I really do need a lot more aural input if I am to improve my output. Oh, and Yuya gave me a basic grounding in tamego, language used between friends, which has a number of distinctions from mere plain style. Completely dropping honorifics, for example, and shortening basic expressions such as onegai and gomen. He says he wouldn't normally be so informal with someone older, but feels this will make our relations smoother. I prefer it this way. Certainly, I am finding that many of the "hard and fast" rules I picked up in my studies are guidelines at best.
It's been a busy couple of days for the Urushibara family. The celebration of my visit on the night of the 25th coincided with Yukio's birthday, while the following day his cousin died (though this seems to have had little impact on the other members of the family). As for me, I'm still having trouble sleeping from jetlag, and am constantly a little tense from fear of making mistakes in front of the Urushibaras, but otherwise am adjusting. It's gradually getting less scary than I expected. The weather, by the way, is fantastic - pretty hot, yes, but fine if I stay hydrated, and a cool breeze offsets the heat very well. By mid-afternoon, life is worth living again.
My (i.e. Yuya's) room
View from my window. Note the enormous construction area on the right - yet the relative lack of noise puts British builders to shame.
I spent yesterday acclimatising on the family's advice. Yuya took me to the Ookurayama Commemoratory Building (kin'enkan), built in European/Greek style about 120 years ago to commemorate the life of some important person or other. Ookurayama, by the way, is where I am staying - the tenth floor of a high-rise in a residential area in the Kohoku ward of the Yokohama district. Finally, the town-ward-district-prefecture system makes sense to me. All the classes in the world couldn't make me understand it, but just being here and seeing the street signs, plus a quick confirmation from Yuya, is all it took. Yokohama, by the way, is a harbour district (though the harbour proper is some distance from us) which rose to prominence as one of the first harbours to be opened to foreign trade during the Meiji Restoration.
Ookurayama Kin'enkan (entrance).
The kin'enkan is surrounded by a small but very nice park, with beautiful trees and beautiful bright yellow spiders in intricate spiderwebs. Sadly, most of my shots of both came out blurred.
Inside, the main stairwell is decorated with a set of gargolyes. Just because.
Gargoyles, detailed view. Mostly lions and eagles. Mysterious, yet ultimately not worth the effort of inquiry - much like the flu prevention alcoholic hand spray bottle at the entrance.
The building itself was nothing special, but I encountered some interesting specimens of Japanese wildlife, including a prominent breed of dog, the chirp of infinite semi (a species of cicada; today I actually saw a few; they have what Yuya described as an evanescent two-week lifespan, appear late in the summer and make lots of noise) and some truly magnificent marked yellow spiders which my camera is too low-res to capture. More importantly, Yuya had to leave for one of his two part-time jobs at 5.30, and left me with a map sketch, directions and what to ask passers-by if necessary. I was on my own in Japan.
One of a number of ordinary Japanese houses in Ookurayama, complete with remarkable possibly-bonsai garden display.
Far from all houses were so decorated, but there were enough to assume it was a common practice. Part of me wonders if this could be a form of recreation or even competition among bored Japanese housewives (a far more common occupation in Japan than contemporary Europe). Then again, it could just be a garden.
I wandered along the described route. It was blissful. I attempted to read various notices, including posters for the upcoming Saturday mayoral elections, with an electronic dictionary and varied success. The posters themselves are primitive, populist things with lines like "who will protect the country to the last? X will". The most informative was "I will lower consumption tax to zero and work to ban nuclear weapons. A new generation for a new era. Vote Y!" Actual manifestos are read out by campaigners in little white vans with loudhailers that travel the neighbourhood. They are remarkably audible even across long distances.
One of these six people is the future mayor of Yokohama. Note how any name readers might struggle with has little yomigana on its right to explain how to read it. Mind you, Suzuki (with the red background; "I will work to bring about a new generation in the world of politics!") has one of the most common names in Japan and still has them.
In all of the excitement, I somehow misunderstood the directions and ended up walking past my destination and way beyond to Shin-Yokohama. I then gradually retraced my steps with the aid of a variety of random passers-by. This took a while since as it got dark, and as I got closer to my destination, the number of passers-by decreased, and also since I had to overcome my shyness (including the fact of all conversations being conducted in pure Japanese). At any rate, they were all very polite and helpful, and I made it back safely.
An appalling shot, but the best I have of this unexpected pillar. The Committee for Brightening the Society of Kohoku Ward (or some such) brings you a message which I can only translate as "Don't worry, even if you're different from everyone else". Not quite the standard Japanese outlook (which emphasises harmony and conformity), so it's comforting to know that one can randomly bump into this sort of thing on the street.
A warning poster from the police. I can only approximately work out the meaning, but I believe it refers to criminals who phone families, pretending to be their children or grandchildren and asking for money to pay off debts. Note the racoon telling the fox to lay it on a bit more thickly.
An aside here about the glory of the Japanese-style bath. Now with automatic re-heating technology that keeps it warm, said bath is a fantastic form of relaxation. Notably, one washes outside it first so as to enter the water clean and free of worry. The same water will later be used by someone else. Other key features of Japanese houses some readers may be unaware of include slippers (traded in for shoes at the genkan or entrance hallway; one changes into a separate set for the bathroom and certain other areas such as balconies) and the presence, in an otherwise fully modern flat, of a single tamami-matted room with a takonoma, or alcove containing Traditional Japanese Things. One goes in without slippers.
The genkan. Were anyone out, their slippers would be lined up at the edge of the carpeted area. Note how it's polite to turn shoes the right way round after taking them off - a good host will do this for you if you don't. As for stepping beyond the genkan in shoes - embarrassment ensures that one will only make that mistake once.
The traditional-style room. This one seems to double as a study
(unseen to the left is a desk stacked with papers, and a swivel chair).
The takonoma.
From everything I've seen, a takonoma will always contain at least one work of traditional Japanese art. Nature is a common subject, and cranes (tsuru) a common choice of wildlife for their beauty.
Beneath the cranes, an ancient Japanese chariot has pride of place between souvenirs from China and a statue of unknown significance. The Urushibaras are no more religious than an average Japanese family as far as I can tell, perhaps even less.
As for today, Yuya and I went to Akihabara, known to many as the Japanese geek Mecca. My impressions were mixed. On the one hand, it is a geek shopping paradise. Anime, manga, technology and department stores everywhere. Girls in maid uniforms handing out flyers (sadly, they preferred not to be photographed). A variety of notable foodstuffs such as oden-in-a-can from vending machines (oden being a stew-like substance to the best of my understanding). On the other hand...somehow I was expecting more, especially after Michiko taped a news special on "Akiba" for us last night. Where were the cosplayers? The maid cafes (which must exist, given aforementioned girls, but are presumably off the main streets)? The hallmarks of a unique geek culture? I've already decided to come back on my own, and perhaps I shall do a better job of finding these things. I've resolved not to leave without visiting a maid cafe - I don't really get the whole maid fetish, but if there's one thing symbolic of Akiba...
Anime posters covering whole buildings. Bliss. Note the "No Goods, No Life" signs in the second photo. Do not note what they're selling on the third floor.
Very large displays containing adverts, trailers etc. are pretty common. This one advertises MS Windows (sigh). If I were to have one criticism of Japanese technological genius this far in, it would be their ignorance of the virtues of Open Source software. Did I mention I'm writing this using IE6? It doesn't even have tabbed browsing!
Countless smaller shops line the streets. It is to these that I shall return in the quest for bargains.
The shadowy rulers of Akiba know every trick in the book when it comes to attracting customers, from game display screens to colourful posters, life-size statuettes and borderline ecchi posters of scantily-clad anime girls.
The culmination of which trend is the girl in a maid uniform. This one's sign advertises some sort of special event (though it's lacking in detail), but there were many others on the streets, mainly handing out flyers or hurrying to work (most are probably students doing this as a part-time job). This girl had her sign raised like this before I even noticed her, but since she lowered it after she passed me, I now realise she probably didn't want to be photographed. Others refused to be photographed when asked. Where, o where is the true cosplay spirit?
The central figure ("Our Tarou") comes from a popular series of satirical cartoons which poke fun at the government. Beneath the sign, one can purchase themed goods including superhero team figurines of the current politicians.
The occasional old-fashioned hardware shop is a reminder that we are, after all, in Akihabara Electric Town, and that its えevolution into an otaku Mecca came only as external competition reduced its lead in its original markets -electrical hardware and, later, computers.
Accordingly, most things electronic can be found somewhere in Akiba. This store's highly dubious posters advertise cheap mobile phones.
Dating sims, a uniquely Japanese genre of game, are alive and well. One advert memorably asked "do you have a pure mind?" Perhaps they are not all as familiar with their target audience as I first thought...
A few stores visibly belong to another level. This place is a boutique for Apple Macs. Compare below:
Though the appearance of such stores may suggest something about the gender and interests of the clientele, there were quite a lot of women shoppers around Akihabara, as well as briefcase-carrying salarymen and smartly-dressed professionals.
We did spend lots of time walking and browsing in blissfully cool (temperature-wise) department stores. I wonder if Japanese geeks know how lucky they are to get all the Japanese games way before the rest of the world (if we Europeans get them at all). They had the latest Phoenix Wright game for the DS! The one starring Miles Edgeworth! In Japanese! If I had my own DS, I would have bought it in a flash. I may consider the matter if I see a cheap DS anywhere (Kitten's came from Korea, so they must be region-free) but the department prices were no different from home. Japanese games would be great learning tools. It's a pity, though, that the games I saw for other platforms were mostly ones already available in English and didn't really pique my interest.
The seventh floor of this department store is dedicated to souvenirs, including cheap kimonos. This is wonderful from a tourist perspective, since "proper" kimonos are exorbitantly expensive - while many middle-aged women will buy their own, ｍost people rent them for special occasions such as the coming-of-age ceremony when one turns 20. Note the "souvenirs" sign in Russian.
And now I am being summoned back by the family and cannot, sadly, find the leisure to write about everything else. Will post again soon. The cafe is within walking distance of the house, which helps.
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